Davies at the Livingstone Campaign HQ

He started with a joke, but Davies was concerned about a number of recent developments on campus when he addressed the Students Union at todays UGM. On top of his list were community relations, particularly as a result of fallout between various student societies during and after the contentious Make Apartheid History motion. Howard even offered to send in an LSE staff member who is a professional negotiator with experience in Northern Ireland to help smooth the road. Secondly, he said that it seemed clear that the LSE had been cased by professional thieves who have pulled off heists in Garrick and the Quad Cafe in recent weeks. There were considerable discussions within the administration, he said, as to how to respond whilst remaining an ‘open campus’. Could swipe card entries be far away? The LSE students famously tore down a previous effort to close the campus in the late 1960s.

The Q&A was relatively dull, with Howard proving himself capable of drolly batting away inconvenient or irrelevant questions, although often less combatively than  our American friend yesterday (and without a single reference to orgies!). He rightfully refused to weigh in on the Make Apartheid History motion as well as the propriety of a Crush event being themed on Italian Gangsters (it turned out that this is in concert with a student drama performance of King Lear with a Godfather-like adaptation). Still, he did pledge to reimburse any students who had been overcharged for disabled rooms in student halls and promised that new printer value loaders will be installed next week, on 12 February.

With Davies dealt with, the remainder of the UGM was rather hurried. Environment and Ethics officer Aled Fisher announced a planned Living Wage action against either Subway or the Royal Courts of Justice. The Beaver announced that it would be holding a contest to win a tailored suit (one can only imagine that there would be a comparable prize should a woman win and opt against a three-piece), with details to follow in next week’s issue. PuLSE will be running Ragathon from Midnight on Sunday night full through the end of next week, although the UGM also had to console itself when station manager Dan Dolan announced that he will resign in week 7.

Finally, the tabled motion to lobby for Bloomberg machines in the library failed to carry and the Codes of Practice amendment passed in part, with the controversial ban on society endorsements falling, as well as the ban on non-approved websites. The balance of the motion carried (you can find the motion in the order paper .doc here). More information on the timetable for the elections can be found on the SU webpage here.

GenSec Candidates in the Beaver

So we missed our Beaver Review this week – so sorry about that (although there wasn’t a ton to glean from this weeks issue, which led with a speculative report of fraud at the NatWest ATM beside campus). We won’t bother going back and retreading that territory, but we will pick up on one article published inside regarding the upcoming Sabbs Officer elections, which named four candidates for General Secretary.

The named candidates, Aled Fisher, Andy Hallet, Abz Hussein and Stephen Wall, are all familiar faces at the UGM, save the post-grad Wall. The general trend across the four seems to be a return to hearth and home – an attempt to ride the wave of antipathy towards the UGM’s recent attitude of weighing in on International Affairs. “Student issues are not being addressed,” Hallet was quoted as saying, while Wall weighed in that the Union has been focusing too much attention on “grandiose and pretentious issues” of late. No arguments here.

Still, haven’t all these characters (again, Wall excluded) been involved in the various grandiose motions? Hallet and Hussein both sit on the Constitution and Steering committee that had advised for annulling the vote for the Make Apartheid History motion (which is apparently risen from the dead), while Fisher, who is currently Environment and Ethics officer, has been involved in various issues and demonstrations on international affairs (although it should be noted that he has taken stands on student issues as well, from the addition of Peter Sutherland to LSE Council to registering his complaint against Howard Davies’ sabbatical). So are these candidates flip flopping (to borrow a phrase from our American friends) to respond to the winds of public opinion? I suppose only time will tell..

Scalia is All for Gay Orgies

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court gave a lecture and answered questions in a highly attended event yesterday. Originally slated to be held in the more intimate Shaw Library, the great interest in the event saw it shifted to the Old Theater where Scalia delivered a lecture lamenting the role of judges’ ‘abstract moralizing’ as well as the notion (advanced by his own court) of a ‘living constitution’ that must continually be reinterpreted to suit contemporary circumstances. Throughout the lecture Scalia slipped in several jokes, including returning several times to the decision in a case by the European Court of Human Rights in regards to a gay orgy – not exactly the sort of stuff one might expect a stuffy judge to carry on about.

The most interesting bit, however, had to be the Q&A session that followed the lecture where Scalia seemed to revel in batting aside the various (politely worded) assaults that came from the audience. On subjects from Global Warming to the International Criminal Court and the Nuremberg Trials, he provided pithy responses, often simply rejecting the question on the basis of a disagreement on the facts. His sometimes free-wheeling comments seemed to surprise a lot of the audience, for instance when comparing democracy to various other forms of government he allowed that autocracy can lead to some accomplishments: “Hitler produced a wonderful automobile!”

Indeed, although the Justice earned some genuine laughs and his amiable, if uncompromising, style made for good banter, he still managed to stun most of the audience with comments seemingly nostalgic for  dark age purge practices (“If you lose, you die”) and expressed a somewhat cynical assessment of what kind of person might be the next nominee to the Supreme Court (a Hispanic, Protestant woman). By the time the event came to a close, he seemed to be really getting into the discussion, although he mused aloud that he wouldn’t have minded some ‘friendly questions’. There weren’t forthcoming, but he’s probably used to that.

Howard Davies at the UGM

Today the Director of the LSE will speak to the UGM and field questions. We’ll see if he is as deft at deflecting unfriendly questions as Antonin Scalia was yesterday (expect a post on that Q&A to be forthcoming). If last term’s address, where Davies disarmed several abusive questioners with one arm in a sling, was any indication then he’ll put up a good fight. Should be jolly good fun.

Also, there will be a vote on the Returning Officer’s motion to amend election rules, which is expected to be strongly contested. Looks like the UGM can probably breath easy and expect to reach a quorum once again!

*burp* It Must Have Been Something I Ate

Fret not, faithful readers, the Observer hasn’t slipped off of this mortal coil, even if there are now pretenders to the throne. We’re back on our full schedule, and have a hearty helping of posts and goss for you today, so stay tuned.